Modification Description: Moderate the private messages sent by users on a phpBB3 bulletin board. Administrators can view the private message database and delete private messages using this Administration Control Panel plugin.

Modification Version: 1.5.4

Features:

View private messages created by the users of your bulletin board

View all of the private messages sent by a specific user

View all of the private message received by a specific user

View the conversation between two specific users

Search for private messages that contain a specific text string

Delete private messages

Installation/Update Procedure:
Instructions for installing or updating this MOD in your phpBB3 bulletin board can be found in Sourceforge.

Change History:

v1.5.4 (2010-03-21)

Added the "Can moderate private messages" administrative permission in the "Misc" category to control which administrators are able to see this module in the ACP.

v1.5.3 (2010-03-11)

The phpBB team never reviewed version 1.5.2. Somehow, for some unexplained reason, it disappeared from their queue. So today I have posted 1.5.3 to the queue for review.

I have updated the MOD so that it now knows how to handle group names in the "To:" address field.

v1.5.2 (2010-02-28)

If a message has been deleted by all of its recipients and the only place it still exists is in the author's Sentbox, you will see the flag "(SentBox)" next to the author's name in the message list.

Corrects several problems which prevented validation of this MOD by the phpBB team.

v1.5.1 (2010-02-08)

Corrects several problems which prevented validation of this MOD by the phpBB team.

v1.5.0 (2010-01-31)

Adds a text string search capability.

v1.4.2 (2010-01-29)

Change WPM message filtering to a generic string filter. A configuration setting now allows the user to specify a text string which, if found in the body of a message, will cause that message to be excluded from display in the message list.

Added support for clicking on names in "to" column. Displays a list of of all messages sent to the selected user.

Changed search filter at the bottom of the page so that it displays all of the messages back and forth between two users.

v1.3.0 (2010-01-22)

Added a configuration page for the module that allows the user to set preferences for the number of messages displayed per page, whether or not message text is displayed and whether or not messages from the WPM mod are included.

Changed it so that, when you have elected not to display message text, clicking on the message subject line will pop up a window containing the message text.

Changed the installation and update process to more fully utilize the functionality in AUTOMOD and UMIL. Hopefully this brings me more in line with the "standard" install/update process for phpBB3. I added the installation/update instructions to this post, above.

v1.2.0 (2010-01-19)

Fixes a syntax error in the index.xml (the AUTOMOD installation control file)

Changed so that duplicate copies of messages in the PM database are no longer displayed.

Change to better handle non-english names in the author name search field. A by-product of this change is that names are no longer case sensitive.

v1.1.1 (2010-01-18)

Correct SQL error

v1.1.0 (2010-01-17)

Interpret BBcode in messages

Add option to toggle display of messages generated by WPM mod

Correct bug that allowed display of messages that had been marked as deleted

I am well aware (and you should be too) that there are potential legal and ethical issues associated with the monitoring of "private messages" on a bulletin board. I made my own judgment about those issues before I created this MOD for my board. You should make your own similar judgment before you use this MOD. I am not interested in having a discussion about all of that here. The topic has been beaten to death elsewhere. What I am interested in is a discussion about any technical issues associated with this MOD. I use it on my board and it works for me. I'm hoping that it will work as well for those of you who decide that you have a need for this sort of functionality.

Last edited by Sam on Sun Oct 24, 2010 7:58 am, edited 23 times in total.
Reason:MOD is currently in the Modifications Database. If the MOD author wishes to post the next development versions on this forum, feel free to open a new topic for it.

So is this like a PM Spy type thing, where you can see all of your members' private messages, or is it something where you can view messages sent only by users that are under moderation? Both are helpful features, imo, but I just wanted to make sure which one this does.

Don't forget to smile today. Please do NOT contact for support via PM or email.
Remember, the enemy's gate is down.

imkingdavid wrote:So is this like a PM Spy type thing, where you can see all of your members' private messages, or is it something where you can view messages sent only by users that are under moderation? Both are helpful features, imo, but I just wanted to make sure which one this does.

apierce wrote:A Few Inquiries:
Can you make the messages readable? Like in normal view, not html/bbcode?

Can you also make it work with the WPM mod (Welcome PM) so that welcome messages are ignored? Thanks.

I'll look at doing those two things. I hadn't considered the bbcode/html thing a requirement for my own use but I'll see what I can do. And I'm not familiar with the WPM mod but I'll take a look at it.

BBCode and HTML in messages is now interpreted and displayed, rather than displaying it as code.

If you have the WPM mod installed, a new select box will appear at the bottom of the page that allows you to toggle the display of the welcome messages generated by that mod.

I fixed a bug that I think will solve the problem of anonymous (orphaned) messages not going away when you delete them. (I haven't tested this too deeply so let me know if I am wrong and this doesn't fix this problem.)

To install this update simply copy the files in the root directory of the installation package, replacing those from the previous version.

eunaumtenhoid wrote:
add permissions
sees the pms as the mod reader pm
to have a button to edit, that when pressed anger it shows the pms in code as it is now.

I'm sorry but I do not understand what you are suggesting. If you are saying that my MOD should somehow control what PMs a moderator can see, I do not plan to do that. I see my MOD as a tool for board administrators, not for forum moderators. I am not aware of any relationship that ties PMs to specific forums so that one could know which forum moderator should manage them.

Also, I have no plans to provide a way for administrators to edit other people's private messages.

Last edited by twosheds_ on Sun Jan 17, 2010 4:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.